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CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-Up 270
12 - 18 March 2005


CONTENTS:

DRC: UN agency to act on Ituri human rights violations
DRC: UN envoy gives militiamen ultimatum to disarm
BURUNDI: Two million people face food shortage, UN agency says
BURUNDI: Electoral commission's proposal to postpone elections is
   rejected
RWANDA: UN tribunal sentences ex-civic leader to six years in jail
RWANDA: Sweden finally gives an extra US $7 million to fight poverty
   CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: Vote-counting under way after elections
UGANDA: 160 rescued from rebels since January - army
UGANDA: 600,000 drought-affected people to get food aid in northeast
KENYA: Raiders kill 22 in inter-clan violence


SEE ALSO:

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: Pre-election interview with Lamine Cisse, UN 
special representative http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=46071

DRC: UN agency to act on Ituri human rights violations

The UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), MONUC, has 
pledged to "bring before the courts" perpetrators of crimes committed in 
the embattled northeastern district of Ituri.

"Those responsible [for the] crimes will be prosecuted," Gen Patrick 
Cammaert, the acting MONUC commander and chief of the mission's East 
Division, told reporters on Wednesday at a news conference in the 
capital, Kinshasa.

Inter-militia fighting in the area has left hundreds of civilians dead, 
and hundreds of thousands displaced in recent months.

MONUC convened the news conference to present a report it had compiled 
regarding those responsible for crimes in Ituri.

At the same time, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs 
Jan Egeland, told a news briefing in Geneva that the DRC had overtaken 
Sudan's Darfur region to become "the biggest, most neglected 
humanitarian emergency in the world today", and that "sexual abuse in 
recent years had become probably worse there than anywhere else in the 
world".

Egeland made the remarks at the beginning of a two-day regional meeting 
of humanitarian officials. He said some three million Congolese were in 
acute need of relief aid "in a complex emergency where many parties were 
involved, including, at one point, about 20 different armed actors".

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=46160 ]

[On the Net: SOUTH AFRICA: SANDF will not tolerate rights abuses 
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=46163 ]


DRC: UN envoy gives militiamen ultimatum to disarm

The Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General to the DRC and 
head of MONUC, William Swing, gave a two-week ultimatum on Sunday to 
militiamen in Congo's embattled northeastern district of Ituri to disarm 
and be integrated into the country's national army.

"I have come to give a clear message - it's finished - now it is time 
for peace and they [the militiamen] have to understand," Swing told 
reporters during a visit to Bunia, the main town in Ituri.

He said his ultimatum was in line with a programme of disarmament, 
demobilisation and community reinsertion of the armed groups under the 
aegis of the UN, which is due to end in April. Many militiamen have 
already undergone the process of community reinsertion and 
demobilisation since the second half of 2004.

[Full story on: 
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=46095 ]


BURUNDI: Two million people face food shortage, UN agency says

Two million Burundians would need emergency food aid this year, 40 
percent more than in 2004, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) reported on 
Wednesday.

In a statement, the agency said a crop and food supply assessment 
report, jointly produced by WFP, the Food and Agricultural Organization 
(FAO), the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the Burundian government, 
concluded that the country would face a food deficit of 310,000 mt in 
2005, compared with 259,000 mt in 2004, "primarily because of 
unfavourable weather conditions since 2003, affecting maize and bean 
yields".

To overcome the food crisis and tackle the specific needs of the most 
affected people, WFP said it would, together with FAO and other 
agencies, distribute 140,000 mt of food, 7.38 mt of seeds and 150,000 
hoes to 369,000 families - the equivalent of two million people. [Full 
story on: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=46133 ]


BURUNDI: Electoral commission's proposal to postpone elections is 
rejected

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and South African Deputy President 
Jacob Zuma rejected on Tuesday a proposal from Burundi's electoral 
commission to postpone the country's final round of elections by two 
months, a senior Ugandan government official told IRIN.

Museveni, who is chairman of the regional initiative on Burundi, and 
Zuma, facilitator of the Burundi peace process, met the head of the 
Burundian Independent Election Commission (IEC) Paul Ngarambe, in the 
Ugandan capital, Kampala. Ngarambe briefed them on progress made so far, 
including the recent referendum on a new constitution, as well as on 
preparations being made for forthcoming elections.

The deadline for the next poll had been 22 April 2005. A senior official 
in the Ugandan government, who asked to remain anonymous, said that IEC 
officials had wanted the next poll to be delayed because they felt that 
laws required to organise voting more efficiently were not yet in place.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=46126 ]

[On the Net: BURUNDI: National assembly adopts new electoral code: 
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=46126 ]


RWANDA: UN tribunal sentences ex-civic leader to six years in jail

The UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda sentenced a former 
Rwandan civic leader on Monday to six years in prison after he pleaded 
guilty to involvement in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

Vincent Rutaganira, 60, is the fourth man to have pleaded guilty to 
genocide before the tribunal, set up by the UN Security Council in 
November 1994 following the April-July genocide that year in which 
937,000 people were killed, according to Rwandan government estimates.

Rutaganira's conviction brings the number of suspects already sentenced 
to 24, including three acquittals. Former Rwandan Prime Minister Jean 
Kambanda was the first to plead guilty before the tribunal. He is 
serving a life sentence in Mali.

[Full story on: 
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=46089]


RWANDA: Sweden finally gives an extra US $7 million to fight poverty

The Swedish government gave Rwanda a $7-million grant on Thursday, to 
help finance the country's budget deficit and its poverty-reduction 
strategies.

The Swedish ambassador to Rwanda, Bo Goransson, also signed a two-year 
memorandum of understanding with the foreign affairs minister, Charles 
Murigande, whereby Sweden pledged continued support for Rwanda's 
poverty-reduction, education and good-governance programmes.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=46061 ]


CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: Vote-counting under way after elections

Votes were being counted on Monday in the Central African Republic 
(CAR), the day after presidential and parliamentary elections marked by 
delays in many polling stations.

Eleven candidates stood for the presidency on Sunday, while 900 
candidates vied for 105 parliamentary seats.

The electoral commission, or CEMI, had 15 days, from voting day, to 
proclaim the results of this first ballot; no date has been announced 
for a second ballot should one be required. The results will bring to an 
end the two-year transitional government installed by Bozize after he 
seized power from President Ange-Felix Patasse on 15 March 2003. [Full 
story on: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=46090 ]


UGANDA: 160 rescued from rebels since January - army

The Ugandan army has rescued 160 captives, most of them children, from 
the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) since the beginning of the year, 
army spokesman Maj Shaban Bantariza told IRIN on Tuesday.

He said between 1 January and 7 March the army rescued 147 abductees and 
killed 185 rebels over the same period, while 54 of them were captured 
and 93 others surrendered.

Over 100 guns and 13,000 rounds of ammunition were recovered during the 
period, he added. Another 13 children were rescued and two rebel 
fighters killed in skirmishes with the LRA on Monday and Tuesday in the 
northern districts of Gulu and Apac.

The rebel group is notorious for its brutality, particularly to 
children, with relief agencies estimating that the LRA has abducted over 
20,000 children since it started fighting in northern Uganda in 1986.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=46115 ]


Also on Tuesday, leaders from the north arrived in The Hague, 
Netherlands, to appeal to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to 
refrain from issuing arrest warrants against the LRA leaders.

"The meeting follows [the prosecutor's] invitation and is in order to 
hear the views of the Acholi leaders about issues concerning their 
communities, local justice traditions and efforts to end the violence," 
Yves Sorokobi, spokesman for the Office of the Prosecutor, said on 
Wednesday.

A source close to the delegation told IRIN: "The purpose of the visit is 
to meet the chief prosecutor [Luis Moreno-Ocampo] - letting him know 
that [the] ICC's intervention in northern Uganda will seriously 
jeopardise efforts to end the conflict in Uganda through peaceful means.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=46134]


UGANDA: 600,000 drought-affected people to get food aid in northeast

WFP has launched an effort to provide food aid to nearly 600,000 
drought-affected people in Uganda's northeastern Karamoja region during 
the next six months, the agency said on Wednesday.

"Karamoja already suffers from the highest levels of malnutrition in 
Uganda, and given the poor 2004 harvest we are greatly concerned about 
the fate of the hundreds of thousands of people there who risk running 
out of food before the next harvest in September," Ken Noah Davies, 
WFP's country director for Uganda, said.

He told IRIN that four sub-counties had been severely hit by the 
drought: Kalapata and Nyakwae in Kotido District, and Rupa and Nadunget 
in Moroto District.

WFP had started distributing food in those areas "in an effort to avert 
hunger and malnutrition, especially among children under five, school 
children, the elderly, and pregnant and lactating women."

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=46129 ]


KENYA: Raiders kill 22 in inter-clan violence

Armed attackers shot and killed 22 people when they raided a village in 
the northeastern Kenyan district of Mandera at dawn on Tuesday, a police 
spokesman said. Three other people were wounded.

Police later pursued the group of about 40 raiders and shot dead eight, 
the spokesman, Jaspher Ombati, told IRIN on Tuesday. He said the 
assailants were believed to be members of the Murule clan, while the 
victims were thought to be from the Garre.

The attack happened at El Golicha village, near El Wak town, which is 
close to Kenya's border with Somalia. The village where the attacks 
occurred is about 600 km from the capital, Nairobi.

It was not immediately clear what triggered the latest violence, but the 
two groups, both Kenyan Somalis, have a history of feuding over pasture 
and water points.

[Full story on: 
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=46110 ]


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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 
2005


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